


Snow, Shapes and Parents

by chainocommand



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:57:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainocommand/pseuds/chainocommand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's first Christmas out of the ice. Tony attempts to be a good host, but it's never been a very good time of year for him. Mentions of Howard and Maria, lonely childhood.<br/>Title from the prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow, Shapes and Parents

Tony didn’t like winters in New York. He preferred to spend the holiday in his Malibu house, enjoying the state were people were still out and about in swimwear. He had invited Steve but Captain America wanted to spend his first Christmas out of the ice in his hometown, aka New York City (which made no sense to Tony: the man had just gotten out of the ice, why would he stay for it when he could have sunshine and daiquiris?). After a small battle of wills that had involved several SHIELD interns (until Nick Fury said it wasn’t a good use of resources and can’t they email like everybody else), Tony had agreed to spend Christmas in New York in exchange for full channel choosing privileges. To seal the deal, he brought Steve a television as a house-warming gift and stuck the remote down his trousers. Steve declined the offer to go and get it.

So, instead of ogling beachgoers from the comfort of his own balcony, Tony found himself wrapped up in several layers that cost more the than the annual rent of Steve’s studio apartment. Tony had wardrobes bigger than Steve’s home. His shoes had wardrobes bigger than Steve’s home. 

‘Can we please go back inside?’ asked Tony. ‘It is two steps that way, please? Before my fondest appendage falls off?’

‘It’s not going to fall off, Tony,’ said Steve, sitting back and seeing his breath mist before him. 

‘Not if you warm it up,’ Tony muttered as he sipped hot chocolate, the gloves on his hands so thick his fingers could barely bend. He was the only person Steve knew who could look superior while drinking hot chocolate through a curly straw. Such was the Stark genes.

‘How is it that you are complaining while I, the man who spent seventy years frozen in the North Sea, am fine.’

‘You acclimatised and I’m delicate,’ said Tony.

Steve snorted.

Tony raised an eyebrow. Apparently he had been serious.

‘Do you really want to go inside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Alright then – Top Gun is on in a minute, though I don’t know why you want to watch it so badly.’

He was still talking while Tony zoomed into the apartment in a blur of angora and cashmere. He dived under the covers of Steve’s sofa bed, pulling the covers up to his scarf-covered nose. ‘I think it’s colder in here.’

‘I forgot to pay the bill,’ said Steve, lighting a few candles.

‘Forgot?’ Tony repeated.

Steve shifted uncomfortably, like he always did when the subject of money came up with Tony. ‘Being an artist doesn’t pay a lot you know. Especially when you’re not stealing any paintings.’

‘Does SHIELD pay you, Captain Awesome?’ said Tony.

‘Yes,’ said Steve a little stiffly while he topped up their hot chocolate from the saucepan on the hob.

‘So what’s the problem?’

Steve sat on the bed next to Tony, suffering Tony pulling the covers over him and tucking him in, generally fussing over him. ‘SHIELD pays by the mission, Tony, and it’s been quiet lately.’

‘Aren’t you on retainer?’ asked Tony, taking back his cup.

‘Not all of us are indispensible consultants,’ said Steve.

‘No, the rest of us are the peak of humanity,’ Tony muttered. ‘We should memo Nick Fury – he can’t know about this.’

‘It was Hill’s decision,’ said Steve. ‘She said it was too expensive to buy every Avenger a retainer, and besides, most of us have normal jobs anyway.’

‘Tight-fisted cow,’ said Tony vehemently. ‘You’re a soldier of the United States Army, you have to be paid!’

Steve shifted uncomfortably again. ‘I was declared dead, Tony... the Army hasn’t rehired me yet.’

Tony looked at him, eyebrows in danger of disappearing into his hairline. ‘Hill is pulling bureaucratic BS with Captain America’s salary? You’ve got to be fucking me.’

‘No,’ said Steve – Tony still found it adorable that he flushed automatically when someone around him swore. It was impressive, given that he had been in the armed forces...

‘Steve, do you need a loan?’ Tony asked.

Steve looked at him. ‘Tony, no,’ he said, grateful but firm. ‘I can manage on my own. I’ll make it.’

‘Can I give you some money then?’ asked Tony.

‘No.’

‘I give everyone money, don’t take it personally,’ said Tony.

‘No, thank you, Tony, but I’d prefer to keep money out of our relationship.’

‘You could always marry me, then you’d have lots of money!’ Tony looked around the studio, ‘and I wouldn’t have to keep visiting this rat trap,’ he muttered.  
‘It’ll be nice when I’ve decorated it,’ Steve said, looking around himself, planning it out in his head.

‘Will it be bigger?’ Tony said.

‘No.’

‘Then it won’t be nice,’ Tony grumbled. ‘I like to stretch my legs without hitting the opposite wall. I don’t see why you couldn’t live with me.’

‘We work together, wouldn’t it be too much to see each other all the time?’

‘Clearly you’ve never see the size of my house,’ Tony said, sipping his drink. ‘Or the number of houses.’

 

A few days later and they were in Tony’s childhood house in Long Island, the heating having packed up at Steve’s place. The embarrassment at having his electricity cut off had been sufficient to let Tony sort out his accounts, which Tony did with relish while Fury yelled at Hill for having to spent his Christmas break reinstating Captain America, his own grandmother yelling at him from the kitchen. But in the mean time, Tony and Steve had to exit his glacial apartment and take Tony’s boat to Long Island.

It should have been a lot of fun - he should have known better. Sneaky Steve. You say you want to spend Christmas with someone, and it automatically means that you want to talk about your parents. Jesus.

‘No,’ said Tony.

‘You don’t have one?’

‘No.’

‘No favourite Christmas memory?’

‘No.’

‘Even before your parents died?’

‘Especially before my parents died.’

‘Come on, Tony,’ said Steve, rolling onto his side, ‘you grew up here, you wanted to spend Christmas here, it must be important to you.’

‘It was the furthest from New York I could move you,’ said Tony.

They were lying on opposite sofa in the entertainment room, a vast low coffee table strewn with Christmas supper between them, The Great Escape on the TV – Steve had been to cinemas that had smaller screens that Tony’s telly. 

‘Come on, Tony, you never talk about Howard,’ said Steve. ‘What about your mother? She was after my time, what was she like?’

Tony hooked his leg over the back of the sofa, eyes fixed on the screen.

‘Tony!’

‘For fuck’s sake, what!’ Tony yelled, looking at Steve for the first time in this conversation.

This is why he didn’t look at Steve during arguments. Damn puppy eyes got him every time. While the line of questioning had become irritating, Steve’s expression – radiating compassionate and a need for familial comfort – was so genuine, Tony sighed and propped himself up on the cushions.  
‘Come on then, ask away.’

‘How did you spend Christmas when you were a kid?’ asked Steve eagerly, propping himself up his elbow.

‘Awkwardly,’ said Tony. ‘Mother would plaster a smile on her face I knew from the age of six was fake. Howard would be on his third whiskey by nine in the morning. She would hand around the presents, always from ‘Mummy and Daddy’, always with the cards in her handwriting. He would sit in that chair there, glaring at everyone nursing the hangover from the night before.’

Steve looked at the old chair in the corner of the room. It was old-fashioned, straight backed and a bit uncomfortable looking, and dusty from lack of use.  
‘Present opening was from nine ‘til ten,’ said Tony, sounding like he was reading from one of Pepper’s schedules, ‘ten until one was playing alone in the nursery while Howard slept off the hangover and Mother supervised lunch. One ‘til two was lunch where no one talked. Two ‘til six was playing alone in the nursery while Howard slept off what he had drunk at lunch and Mother supervise dinner. Six ‘til seven was dinner where no one talked. After dinner Howard would be allowed back into his study were he would stay until New Year’s Eve. Mother would take me to church to say prayers for those less fortunate. Then Jarvis would bathe me and put me to bed.’

‘What about the rest of your family?’

‘As mean and drunk as Howard. By the time I could remember Christmas, they were dead. Liver failure most of them.’

‘So... when did you spend time with your parents?’ asked Steve.

‘Didn’t. Then from ten onwards I was at boarding school, though I don’t imagine the schedule changed much from my absence.’

‘Absence?’

‘I spent the holiday at school,’ said Tony, slugging whiskey. ‘That or skiing in Aspen with friends. After my parents died we could finally forget the entire farce that my mother was determined to continue. Jarvis tried the first Christmas without them, but he got sick soon afterwards. By the next Christmas, he was gone.’

‘So you had no one? What did you do?’ asked Steve quietly.

Tony shrugged. ‘Spent it like most Christmases. Drunk of my tits with some person I couldn’t remember come Boxing Day.’

Steve had known Tony’s childhood was not as happy as the outer world expected it to be for a child who had never wanted for any material thing. But this... Steve’s heart was broken, thinking of the dark haired little boy alone in his nursery at Christmas, surrounded by new toys but with no parent to spent time with him. 

‘Tony?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why did you ask me to spend Christmas with you if you don’t celebrate it?’ asked Steve softly.

Tony shrugged. ‘Didn’t fancy getting drunk, I supposed. Fury always gets so pissed when you turn up to a fight plastered.’

Steve let it go for a while, but when they found themselves on Tony’s deck (substantial larger than Steve’s balcony, or enlarged window sill as Tony called it), lying on sun loungers looking up at the stars, Steve said, ‘my parents used to love Christmas. They had all these little traditions that had developed over the years. I carried them on with Bucky. Would you mind...?’

‘Knock yourself out, sport,’ Tony said, emptying his glass down his throat, ice cubes tinkling gently.

Steve disappeared and brought back paper and two pairs of scissors. He put one pair and some paper on Tony’s chest and sat down on his own lounger.

‘What do I have to do?’ Tony said in a long suffering tone, as though Steve asked him to engage in origami every day. 

‘Make your own ornament,’ said Steve. ‘Draw your favourite shape and cut it out. Or you can fold a shape.’

Tony raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes, I’m serious,’ said Steve. He folded the paper, cut out nicks and then unfolded it to reveal his snowflake. ‘See?’

‘I’m thirty-six years old, sat on my balcony on Christmas Eve, pretty drunk, about to make my own Christmas ornaments?’ said Tony.

Steve deflated. ‘You don’t have to. It was stupid idea, I’m sorry.’

He put the paper and scissors on the floor, pulling the roll of string out of his pocket and dropping that on the floor as well. He lay back on the lounger, his hands folded in his lap, looking up at the night sky again.

Tony sighed. Now he felt like a complete dick. Trying to focus through the whiskey haze, he cut and folded the paper until he had a wonky, bumpy star. ‘What do you think?’ he said holding it up. ‘Should go nicely with the Tiffany stars on the mantelpiece, huh?’

Steve looked over despite himself, saw the forlorn star and laughed. He reached out and Tony let him take it, smoothing out the creases. He held it up, pretending to compare it to the pinpricks of light in the sky. ‘It’s definitely got its own style,’ he said. 

‘Art imitating life,’ said Tony. His hand brushed the bottle next to him but he changed his mind, swinging his hand up to tuck it behind his head. ‘Let it not be say that Tony Stark doesn’t have his own style.’

 

It was very late, or very early depending on how you wanted to look at it, when Tony stumbled downstairs and saw the two new decorations on the mantelpiece – a wonky star with Tony written over it in bold scrawl, and a pretty snowflake, Steve discretely etched along one side.


End file.
